[mythtv-users] [Slightly OT] solar power for all our gadgets
Jon Bishop
jon.the.wise.gdrive at gmail.com
Wed Mar 11 03:53:30 UTC 2009
On Mar 10, 2009, at 8:45 AM, Jeff Walther wrote:
>
>> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:37:43 -0700
>> From: Jon Bishop <jon.the.wise.gdrive at gmail.com>
>
>> While I am all for building a few more nuclear plants (or as good ol
>> 'W' likes to sake Nukuler) I still believe that every citizen has a
>> responsibility to produce a portion of the energy that they use.
>
> While that's a great sounding idea, it makes no sense in an industrial
> society. The reason we can support the populations that we do and
> raise
> them out of poverty is mass production, industrialization and
> *specialization*. All of which lead to massive economies of scale.
> Rolling back those economies translates to making everything massively
> more expensive.
Yes and no. I'm not saying everyone should produce ALL their own
energy. That would be impractical, and fall right in line with what
you're saying... but SOME of the energy - that's easy. It might be
that it needs to be a socialized system (oh no, I said the S word)
where everyone pays for the electricity that they use, and rather than
building huge solar farms in the desert, the utilities take the
surplus and offer incentive programs to install solar on rooftops.
Instead of lobbying to build huge dams that might have irreversible
impacts on the environment, they could use that money to install micro-
hydro facilities in every creek and river in the US. Many of these
facilities would be on private land, and none of them would disrupt
the flow of the water. By doing this, we also gain the benefit of a
decentralized grid, and when grid-tied systems are hooked up properly
(that transfer switch is very important) with battery banks in many of
these people's homes, we won't NEED to build huge nuclear reactors to
make up for the energy that we're currently producing from coal.
> Making every individual generate some energy creates huge
> inefficiencies
> which, when simplified, translates to making everyone needlessly
> poorer.
I don't see how you figure that. By having energy placed into the grid
WHERE it is BEING USED instead of generating it in Arizona and
shipping it over high voltage lines across hundreds of miles, you're
reducing inefficiencies in the grid.
> Plus, I don't know about you, but I'm tapped out, in terms of time
> and,
> money. I do not want to take up home generation as my new hobby--
> I'd have
> to give up MythTV. I resent the folks who think, "Oh, my idea will
> cost
> everyone several hours a week, but that's okay, they can afford it to
> satisfy my pet view of paradise."
Well, actually, home power generation *is* sorta one of my hobbies,
along with all my other interests which we won't get into, time has
never been my problem, it's always the costs that get me. That's
likely because of my plethora of other hobbies and interests. I also
have a slightly longer weekend than most. For a moment we'll ignore
the costs (as scale increases, those would go down, to a point where
it's actually cheaper to use solar than to pay for the fuel to use
traditional techniques). Having solar power on your roof doesn't cost
any time (sans installation, which is usually done by a contractor, an
occasional shot at the roof with a hose, maybe a semi-annual
squeegeeing, which the neighbor kid might be able to do with a big
pole, while he's mowing the lawns) Nor does having a micro-hydro
generator. A windmill takes semi-annual maintenance, but again, not a
couple hours a week. None of these solutions is perfect everywhere.
Many of them compliment each other though. As long as we have people
saying no, we can't do that, I don't want to, it's too much money, or
it's too hard - of course it's going to be all those things. Until we
actually put forth efforts on a national scale, the individuals that
DO actually do these things are the only ones that will ever benefit,
and it will be expensive for them to do so.
> If we all had to build all the stuff we use, we'd all be subsistence
> farmers. There certainly wouldn't be any telecommunications industry
> beyond telegraphs on copper lines--maybe, assuming we could get
> ourselves
> up to smelting and drawing copper.
You are completely misinterpreting what I've said. I could never build
a computer from scratch. Nor a cell phone. I'm talking about
ELECTRICITY, which, as I mentioned, is EASY to make. All you need is a
roll of copper wire and magnet, and you can make AC. Add a couple
diodes, and you've got DC. To make 'usable' (for modern devices, on a
realistic scale) electricity will take a couple more magnets and a few
more coils of wire, but it's not all that difficult, nor time
consuming. Doing this one thing would solve so many of the energy
problems we face today.
> It sounds like you read one of those beautiful tracts in environmental
> lobby magazines which completely ignore the realities of modern
> society
> and its infrastructure.
While it is true that I've been a subscriber to magazines such as
Mother Earth News, I do not believe that we should sacrifice
infrastructure and technology for the benefit of nature. I am,
however, a strong believer in that fact that we need to SUPPLEMENT and
DECENTRALIZE our infrastructure, to increase it's efficiency and
sustainability. And in doing so, nature benefits.
If you have tons of electrical devices, you should consider producing
some of the energy to run them. I'm not talking about heat and a/c, a
fridge/freezer, water heater and stove. I'm talking about big screen
plasma TVs and dozens of computers all over the house, high wattage
stereos and video game systems (the ps3 comes to mind - whatta power
hog) massaging recliners, hot tubs... I believe that common sense
should be used, and no mandate given though. If you use an exceptional
amount of power, you should pay more for it.
On Mar 10, 2009, at 8:47 AM, Jeff Walther wrote:
>>
>> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:52:08 +0100
>> From: Jos Hoekstra <joshoekstra at gmx.net>
>
>> 'you Yanks' are
>> still paying ridicillously little for your power.
>
> There is no virtue, nor advantage to paying more.
The virtue, or advantage, of paying more, is that people waste less.
It's a simple fact of life. You can rant and rave, and insist that
people conserve energy... but the second you start charging more for
it, the usage goes down. Look, for example, at our fuel usage last
summer. I'm not suggesting we artificially inflate prices to decrease
waste - but if it works, then why not? Use the surplus money for
forward thinking improvements that make for sustainability rather than
padding wallets.
If you want to grow a garden, or have a green lawn, capture the runoff
from your rooftops, store it, and use it to water those things. Then,
that much more potable water is available for someone else to use from
the public utility company. Grey water systems are an excellent way to
conserve. Take a shower, and then use that same water to water your
lawn. Same with laundry water. Toilet water needs to go to the sewer
and be properly processed.
Nobody has to suffer to reach this ideal, but everyone has to
sacrifice a little. Nobody wants to sacrifice anything. And our
society of greed and selfishness keeps rolling on towards the huge
cliff.
~Jon
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